Meet Dressmaker -
London's latest purveyors of quality noise in dark rooms. But not just noise.
There's more to Dressmaker than decibels, as the band tell us...

Let's start with the essential logistics. Who's in the band, what do they do?

Charles: Charles Potashner (vocals, recording/production), David Lopez (Guitar), Tom
Fanthorpe (Bass), BenJack (Drums).
We are from the US, Spain, UK, and France. We all met in London.

That's the 'Who are you?' question
­ now the 'What are you?' question. When I've reviewed Dressmaker I've
found it impossible to sum up the band with one or two neat genre identifiers
­ in fact I don't think I've even tried. It's not possible to say 'Dressmaker
are a noise­punk band', or something like that, because it leaves out more
than it includes. So how do you describe Dressmaker?

Charles: I don’t think we are a noise band at all. We are undeniably
noisy but I have friends in true noise bands (guys hunched over pedals
making harsh soundscapes with broken cassettes and contact mics on buckets
that they’re slamming their heads into) and they would laugh if they heard
me calling this a noise band. That being said, I love it when people refer
to us as a noise band because it helps people feel edgy for listening to
us. Great for marketing.

Dressmaker do it live - sound
a little distorted, but that's not an inappropriate way to hear the
music.

We definitely have punk and post punk influences. As someone who was a
teenager in San Diego watching a slew of bands following in their legacy,
I’m incredibly disappointed that I can’t be in Balboa Park to watch Drive
Like Jehu’s reunion show this month. I also like jazz, classical, and bands
that put a weird spin on pop such as American Culture, ACLU Benefit/Noah
Britton, and The Magnetic Fields.

Tom: We’ve spent more time on trying to think of a new genre for
dressmaker’s music then we have on actually writing songs.

David: I agree with Charles, when I think about noise musicians I think
about bands like Merzbow, Lightning Bolt, The Locust or Boredoms, bands
that explore the noise itself as central component of their work.

Having
said that, there is an obvious noisy element in our music but from my point
of view its more an approach to the creative process of composing pop/rock
songs than a goal itself. On the other hand, when we play live I’m really
interested in using the physical
elements of dissonance, loud volume and white noise as key items of our
performance. In that sense I believe that the way that you are exposed
to the music really shapes the overall experience of attending to a gig.
When I saw My Bloody Valentine for the first time in 2008 I felt like I
was witnessing a car crash. I loved that feeling.

Was it
your intention right from the start to create a band that generated a giant
wall of sound, or did it just happen ­ one day you turned it all up loud
and decided to keep it that way? Was there a concept, an idea in your heads,
before you even started the band that it was going to sound intense and
loud, or did it just emerge that way once you got in the room and started
playing?

David: Since our
first rehearsal it became pretty obvious that we all shared the same vision
for dressmaker so it has been a natural process. That vision remains the
same since the very beginning: To work on songs that are big, noisy and
intense but being actually “listenable”. We want for people to enjoy our
music and not feel completely alienated by it.

Personally I’ve always been
obsessed with Psychocandy by The Jesus and Mary Chain, and how
they achieved a perfect balance between noise/aggression/melodies and
amazing pop songs. At the same time we wanted to put the main focus on
our live performances. We really hope that people feel that they just experienced
something really intense after our gigs.

Charles: Building a massive wall of sound was Dressmaker’s
intention from the beginning. We’ve been refining what we do with it but
the wall of sound is always a fundamental element of what we’ve been creating.
We love a wide range of music but when the band got together we knew immediately
that what we wanted to make was going to be loud.

We’ve seen too many laptop
‘bands’ over the past several years and wanted to do something that would
wake people up. Having songs has also been important to us from the start.
As much as we like drones, sonic textures,and layered noise we also
love movement and melody. Our live sets may be painful to listen to but
if you suffer through it there are some songs in there. Talking of the
wall of sound, I'm guessing that it's not an accident that you cover 'Be
My Baby' by the Ronnettes. That's one of Phil Spector's big productions,
of course. Is that a hat­tip from one bunch of sonic bricklayers to another?

Charles: David’s approach to recording guitars generally involves
many layers and an unhealthy dose of echo and delay. I’d guess he has been
influenced by Phil Spector though I doubt Phil, Jeff, or Ellie would approve
of our bastardisation of their song. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if David
has been more influenced by the phrase "wall of sound" more than
the actual techniques Spector used.

David: 'Be My Baby' is one of my favourite songs of all time but
it was actually Tom’s idea to do the cover. As Charles said, I really like
Phil Spector’s sound and I also use multiple layers of overlapped
￼(and heavily processed) guitars but I can’t really say that those specific production
techniques are an influence for us.

In a way it's an odd cover. On the
face of it we might expect you to cover something by the Birthday Party,
for example. It hints that there are more influences behind Dressmaker
than the obvious ones. I think I'm asking the dreaded 'What are your influences?'
question here ­ so, what are they?

David: Even though we have plenty of
influences, many of them not related with what we do in Dressmaker, it’s
really important for us to look forward and feel that we are not copying
something that we have heard a million times before. What’s the point of
that? However there are some influences that I think are definitely part
of our music: Swans, the Psychocandy of Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody
Valentine, Sonic Youth, A Place to Bury Strangers, Joy Division, Birthday
Party, and a million more.

Dressmaker have a psych-pop moment with 'Skeleton Girl'.

Charles: I have the Release The Bats compilation
LP of Three One G bands covering The Birthday Party so when I want to hear
a decent cover I put that on. As it stands we already have enough trouble
avoiding ripping of The Birthday Party when composing songs. And there
is more room for creativity when covering a song from a different genre.
I like covering songs and I think it is useful for learning and improving
as a band but if there is nothing added to the song then I’d rather we
keep the cover to ourselves rather than wasting the audience’s time with
it.

At the moment we are aiming to create intense music with varied dynamics
and very little swing in common time. And despite enjoying Bauhaus, The
Jesus and Mary Chain, and Joy Division I want to avoid writing anything
new that adds to the onslaught of blogs falsely believing we are goths.

Tom: Aside from the bands David mentioned above, which I’ve been
listening to for pretty much the past decade, bands that influence me nowadays
do so in a more abstract way. If a band is doing something great, in some
way or another it influences me.

A case in point would be the Sleaford
Mods, who we have nothing in comparison with whatsoever (aside from maybe
a bit of black humour), yet what they’re doing is fucking incredible ­
it influences me to want to make good music. In my opinion they’re by far
the best band in the UK at the moment.

One point I've mentioned in my live
reviews is that I sense a touch of humour in the Dressmaker live show ­
it's not all furrowed brows and doom at 100 decibels.

In fact, you seem
like you're having fun on stage. There's a knowing sense of the absurd
at work, even as the show ramps up the intensity. Do you see yourselves
as entertainers to any extent, rather than purveyors of Very Serious
Art?

Charles: Performing music is my favourite thing to do. It’s one
of the few things I truly enjoy, so yes, I do have fun on stage. I put
everything I have into each live show and when it goes well it makes me
incredibly happy and when I fuck up I feel terrible. Some of the lyrics
are dramatic and clichéd so it is hard not to laugh at them, but honestly
people’s genuine feelings are sometimes dramatic and clichéd, so I don’t
mind representing those. We genuinely like the music we are creating but
coping with a compulsion to put an enormous amount of time into a project
with no hope for commercial success requires a touch of humour.

David: Dressmaker’s music is intense
and quite dramatic and we take it very seriously but that doesn’t change
the fact that we are also friends, we really enjoy what we do and we spend
most of the time laughing. Anyway, I can’t see the conflict of creating
art and being entertainers at the same time.

Now that rock music
is 60 years old or so, do you think it's possible to be in a rock band
of any sort without being at least slightly post­modern about it? How do
you deal with the paradox of creating new stuff in an old art form?

Charles: I’m not concerned with pushing boundaries; I just want
to make good music that I like and fill tiny rooms with 100­200 people
and watch them sweat while I sing to them. Rock is old but I listen to
plenty of music written in the 1700s and 1800s and it’s still wonderful
and I’m glad people are performing it today. Old things can be beautiful.

And who knows, we may eventually stumble upon creating
something you haven’t heard before.

David: Probably many people thought the same thing in the late
70s and then it happened again, and again in the 80s, 90s, etc. You can
call it rock, punk, hip hop, techno, there will be always a new generation
of people exploring the boundaries of popular music within the parameters
that are relevant for them.

We seem to be in a slightly inconclusive period for music right
now. The twenty­first century post­punk party is ­ well, not exactly over,
but ever since Savages turned up and took over it seems some of the momentum
has gone, and some of the key bands have decided to get their coats and
go home.

S.C.U M are long
gone, Vuvuvultures have split up, Manflu are splitting up soon, Dogfeet
seem to have vanished, Ulterior have gone all quiet. My webzine is
starting to look like a historical document of a period that is passing.
But, of course, that begs the question ­ what happens next?

Tom: Aside from S.C.U.M who I saw perform a very long time ago,
I’m not very familiar with any of the above bands. And to be honest I don’t
really attribute any worth to the term 'post­punk' any more. Bauhaus and
early PiL could accurately be described as post­punk, but as for the other
bands, I’m sceptical. Savages ­ didn’t they write their own manifesto?
I think the closest
we’ve come to anything like that is having our drummer pose as a Flamingo. Naked.

Charles: I don’t think we’re a part of the same scene as the band’s
you mentioned; as far as I know no one from Savages has ever been at one of our
shows and I’ve never been to one of theirs. For live gigs in London I’m more
excited about bands like Roseanne Barr and Sebastian Melmoth.

David: There
are people doing really interesting stuff like Taman Shud or Sebastian
Melmoth, but I don’t feel part of any particular scene.

Tom: We often joke
about the pseudo­psych thing that is pretty popular right now, that seems
to be the closest thing to any ‘scene’ that's happening in London at the
moment. But we’re most certainly not a part of that as we don’t use psychedelic
visuals, wear rosary beads or ‘dig’ things, ‘man’. But as Charles said,
I don’t think we’re a part of a scene with the aforementioned bands either.

Something new will happen, because
new things always happen. Do you think Dressmaker could be part of that
something new? Or do you prefer to be apart from things, rather than a
part of things?

David: Being part of something new
shouldn't be a goal per se, however we put lots of focus on adding
new elements to our music to make sure that we are excited about what we
do.

We don't always agree but it's part of our creative process
to challenge each other constantly with new ideas, new approaches.

Personally,
I don't want to be playing the same music that I've been listening to during
the last years again and again. I would rather stop playing and start doing
something else than being comfortable copying stuff that was originally
created 20 years ago.

Charles: Hopefully Dressmaker’s next album will be
a part of the next new thing. I think there is a big element of luck in
making that happen. By the time you’ve identified the next new thing then
it is probably already too late to be a part of it. I’d rather we continue
making the music we want to be making and hopefully we will get lucky and
it will be something people are interested in.

You've toured the UK just
recently. Was that a positive experience? Was there mayhem and chaos?
Did anyone throw the TV out of the window, in the approved rock 'n' roll
manner?

Charles: Rock stars are boring. We try to be as respectful as
possible to the promoters that are putting in effort to provide us with
shows and beds to sleep in. That being said, there was a moment when our
drummer was scaling the wall of one of the venues in Scotland in a kilt
(worn traditionally, with no pants underneath) so he could break in
via the upstairs window. And we did get kicked out of a nightclub after
our show because
a member of the band we were touring with
was crowd surfing.

David: We had lots of fun. And we discovered Buckfast in Glasgow
which may have had a big impact on our music.

I've met bands who say touring is
not really worth it. You might as well stay at home and put videos up
on YouTube.

But I'm not sure
that stuff really works ­ you might get a lot of views, but very few
of those people will really engage with the band. But if you're right
there in the room with a bunch of people, engagement pretty much has to
happen.

What was your experience?
Did you feel the tour pushed things forward for the band? Do you think
touring is viable and vital ­ or a bit of an optional extra these days?

Charles: Touring is absolutely
worth it. We don’t want to be an internet band. We want to play real music
for real people and occupy real physical space. I see the internet as a
tool to help people find the shows. I love touring and would like to do
it as much as possible.

David: I think touring is great in many ways: to
reach new audiences, as a personal experience, to play with great bands
that I didn't know before, etc.

And now the traditional last question ­
what's next for Dressmaker? What's looming up and coming down the pipe...?

Charles: In the next few months we will be releasing a single
with a grindcore song, a bullshit NME­friendly pop song, and a 60s cover
song. After that I’d hope for some dark militant techno influenced dance
noise.

Tom: We
recently received an email asking us for a quote for making a wedding dress.
So who knows?

Words and photos in Nemesis To Go by Michael Johnson are licenced under Creative Commons. You may copy and distribute this material, or derivations of it, provided that you give a credit to Michael Johnson and a link to Nemesis To Go. Where material from other sources is used, copyright remains with the original owners. All rights in the name 'Nemesis To Go' and the 'N' logo are retained.